The Dark Triad is a group of three personality traits: narcissism

Narcissism

Narcissism is a term with a wide range of meanings, depending on whether it is used to describe a central concept of psychoanalytic theory, a mental illness, a social or cultural problem, or simply a personality trait...

; Machiavellianism

Machiavellianism

Machiavellianism is, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, "the employment of cunning and duplicity in statecraft or in general conduct", deriving from the Italian Renaissance diplomat and writer Niccolò Machiavelli, who wrote Il Principe and other works...

; and psychopathy

Psychopathy

Psychopathy is a mental disorder characterized primarily by a lack of empathy and remorse, shallow emotions, egocentricity, and deceptiveness. Psychopaths are highly prone to antisocial behavior and abusive treatment of others, and are very disproportionately responsible for violent crime...

, all of which are interpersonally aversive.

Introduction

The Dark Triad refers to three theoretically distinct but empirically overlapping personality constructs. The term reflects the perception that these three diagnostic categories, have at least some common underlying factors:

• The narcissistic personality (in the clinical sense) is characterized by a grandiose self-view, a sense of entitlement, lack of empathy, and self-centered egotist. On some theories, such as Kohut, it is associated with protection of a radically weak, shamed, or damaged self.

• The Machiavellian personality is characterized by manipulation and exploitation of others, with a cynical disregard for morality and a focus on self-interest and deception.

• The psychopath, or antisocial personality, is characterized by impulsive thrill-seeking, and in its "primary" form by selfishness, callousness, lack of personal affect, superficial charm, and remorselessness.

All three characters involve a callous-manipulative interpersonal style, and are considered aversive. Jakobwitz and Egan carried out a factor analysis

Factor analysis

Factor analysis is a statistical method used to describe variability among observed, correlated variables in terms of a potentially lower number of unobserved, uncorrelated variables called factors. In other words, it is possible, for example, that variations in three or four observed variables...

 and found agreeableness strongly dissociated with all dark triad personality types, but other factors (neuroticism, lack of conscientiousness) were associated only with some members of the triad.

It has also been argued that narcissists aggress when insulted whereas psychopaths aggress when threatened, and that Machiavellian students cheat by plagiarizing essays whereas psychopaths impulsively copy other students' answers during exams.